Mode of coloring photographs



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JAMES F. BODFDKER, OF MADISON, WISCONSIN.

MODE OF COLORING PHOTOGRAPHS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent NO. 38,144, dated April 14, 1863.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, JAMES F. BODTKER, of Madison, in the county of Dane and State of Wisconsin, have invented a new and useful Improvement in the Coloring of Photographs; and 1 do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the same.

The object of myinvention is to enable photographic pictures on albumenized paper to be successfully colored with dry colors. Such pictures, owing to the albumenized paper not being capable of receiving dry colors without some preparation, and no perfectly suitable preparation having been heretofore known, are commonly colored with water-colors, and this can only be done so successfully as to bear the close inspection to which such pictures are subject by skillful artists.

M yinvention consists in the use of collodion as a medium for receiving the dry colors on such pictures.

In carrying out my invention the picture is to be first mounted, and there is then to be flowed over it alcoholic oollodion of such consistency as to enableit to flow freely. The adhesive property of the collodion may be increased by the addition of a small quantity of balsam of fir or Venice turpentine and a few drops of.oil of lavender or of some other balsam and oil. When the coating of collodion is dry the dry colors are applied in the same manner in which such colors are commonly applied to ambrotypes or other kinds of photographic pictures, and the picture is afterward varnished with a solution of white shellac in alcohol, in which is also dissolved some gum-mastic and a little Venice turpentine, or with what is known as Anthonys diamond varnish, or any of the varnishes used for ambrotypes and melamotypes.

What I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, isi The use of collodion as a medium for receiving dry colors on photographic pictures on albumenized grounds, substantially as herein described.

JAMES F. BODTKER. Witnesses:

NATHANIEL I. J ONES, CHR. WINGE. 

